1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the system for the storage, management, and delivery of information on a computer network and, more specifically, to the efficient and accurate counting of advertising information displayed on terminals connected to the computer network.
2. Description of the Prior Art
During recent years there have been rapid advancements in computers and computer networking. In particular, the world-wide network of computers commonly referred to as the Internet has seen explosive growth The Internet comprises a vast network of smaller wide area and local area computer networks connected together so as to allow the sharing of resources and to facilitate data communication between computers and users. The rapid growth of the Internet is due, in large part, to the introduction and widespread use of graphical user interfaces called browsers which allow users easy access to network servers and computers connected to the Internet and, more particularly, the World Wide Web.
The World Wide Web forms a subset of the Internet and includes a collection of servers, computers, and other devices. Each server may contain documents formatted as web pages or hypertext documents that are accessible and viewable with a web compliant browser, such as the Netscape Navigator.TM. browser or the Mosaic.TM. browser. Each hypertext document or web page may contain references to graphic files or banners that are to be displayed in conjunction with the hypertext document or web page. The files and banners may or may not be stored at the same location as the hypertext document or web page.
A hypertext document often contains hypertext links to other hypertext documents such that the other hypertext documents can be accessed from the first hypertext document by activating the hypertext links. The servers connected to the World Wide Web utilize the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which is widely known protocol which allows users to use browsers to access web pages and the banners or files associated with web pages. The files, banners, hypertext documents, or web pages may contain text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc. and are generally written in a standard page or hypertext document description language known as the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). The HTML format allows a web page developer to specify the location and presentation of the graphic, textual, sound, etc. on the screen displayed to the user accessing the web page. In addition, the HTML format allows a web page to contain links, such as the hypertext links described above, to other web pages or servers on the Internet. Simply by selecting a link, a user can be transferred to the new web page, which may be located very different geographically or topologically from the original web page.
When using a conventional browser, a user can select which web page or hypertext document the user wishes to have displayed on the user's computer or terminal by specifying the web page's Universal or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address. Each server has a unique URL address and, in fact, so does each web page and each file needed to display the web page. For example, the URL address for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is currently http://www.uspto.gov. When a user types in this URL address into a browser, the user's terminal establishes a connection with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the initial web page for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is transmitted from the server storing this web page (which may or may not be actually located at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) to the user's terminal and displayed on the user's terminal. The web page may include a number of graphic images or elements, often referred to as banners, which are to be displayed on the user's terminal in conjunction with the web page. Each of the graphic images is typically stored as a separate file on the server and has its own URL address. When the web page is initially transmitted from the server to the user's terminal, the browser receives the URL addresses for the graphic images and then requests that they be transmitted from the server on which they are stored to the user's terminal for display on the user's terminal in conjunction with the web page. The server(s) on which the graphic images are stored may or may not be the same server on which the original web page is stored. More specifically, since the URL's addresses for the included graphic images are all processed separately using the HTML protocols, it is possible and, in fact, common, for these graphic images to be stored on separate and even widely distributed computers or hosts, all of which are accessible to the user's terminal via a computer network. For purposes of the present invention, the term "banner" is meant to be construed very broadly and includes any information displayed in conjunction with a web page wherein the information is not part of the same file as the web page. That is, a banner includes anything that is displayed or used in conjunction with a web page, but which can exist separately from the web page or which can be used in conjunction with many web pages. Banners can include graphics, textual information, video, audio, animation, and links to other computer sites, web sites, web pages, or banners.
The growth of easy access to the World Wide Web and the ability to create visually pleasing web pages have helped increase the amount of advertising and other promotional materials created for use and display with web pages. For example, a car manufacturer may have a web page describing the company and the cars and car parts that the company manufactures and sells. Part of the web page may include advertising information or banners such as, for example, images of current car models sold by the manufacturer or the types and numbers or cars the manufacturer has in stock. The car manufacturer may also contract with the owners or operators of other web pages to have the car manufacturer's advertisement banners displayed when users access these other web pages. Similarly, an advertising agency may contract with various web sites to have the advertisement banners of the agency's clients displayed when users access the web pages stored on the web sites. For example, an advertising agency or ad-network firm may contract with a web site containing general information about cars to have advertising information or banners included on the web pages displayed to a user accessing the web site. The advertising banners may contain graphics, text, etc. about car models or car parts manufactured by on of the advertising agency's clients. Furthermore, the advertisement banners may not be stored on the same server or computer or web site on which the web page is stored. Rather, all or a significant portion of the advertisement banners created by an advertising agency may reside on one or more information or ad servers. Typically, an advertising agency will pay a fixed amount of money for a fixed number of displays of its advertisement banners on a single web page or group of web pages. Therefore, advertising agencies are understandably very interested in knowing which advertisement banners have been displayed with which web pages and how often each advertisement banner has been displayed on terminals or otherwise served to terminals.
Unfortunately, the current state of the art is such that accurate counts are not made of how many times an banner, even a banner containing an advertisement, is displayed to users or served to terminals. Furthermore, nature and extent of the problem of miscounting displays of banners is not well-known or even understood in the industry or by people of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, despite the well-developed state of the art in the displaying of information, banners, and advertisements in conjunction with web pages, documents, or other information, there is still a need for a system for storing and delivering information and banners on a computer network where accurate counts of the number of times each piece of information and banner is displayed can be made and the information and banners are displayed quickly and efficiently to users or terminals. In addition, there is a need for a highly reliable, even fault-tolerant, system for storing and delivering the information and banners that will not significantly reduce the efficiency of the Internet or the servers on which the information and banners are stored, while providing for accurate monitoring and counting of the information and banners displayed to a user or served to a terminal.